Graupner Bellanca build log

Since this is an ARF I don’t have that much information to share. Some tips or just how I did it:

Basically you need to glue the tail fins in and install the landing gear, controls and electronics. It took me 5 evenings (2-3 hours) but I bet a more experienced or concentrated builder (I have to do this late at night :s) would complete it much faster.

To glue in the tail pieces you need to clear the coating. As stated in the manual you could do it with a sharp knife, but to prevent weakening by cutting too deep they advice using a hot soldering iron. That’s what I did and it leaves a clean cut. It’s even closed thanks to the heat and you can use a ruler to keep it straight.

Then you’ll also have to cut away the covering from the openings in the tail where these fins will be glued in. For that I used a sharp knife since the slots in the wood are already available. You can slice it in 2 and than hold some cardboard or other piece of scrap wood through the opening to cut it nice and straight as shown in these pictures.

Now it’s ready for glue. Pre fit everything before you glue it in. I did but I didn’t mount the wings so I never noticed the horizontal tail was in fact not in line with the main wing. Make sure to mount the wing in order to check so. You’ll probably have to line it up. Something that is much easier if you didn’t glue it in yet (like I did :s).
I used epoxy for this. On the next picture you can see how I used masking tape to have a clean glue joint.

Event the holes for the control horns are properly precut in the wood. You only need to open up the covering and glue it in. I used CA glue at first for this but one came loose on hitting my shoe on the runway (I know :)) so I replaced that one with epoxy already.

On the wings you need to put in the aileron servo’s. The wings already have nice slots prepared for that. You take off some plate where the servo is mounted on (the HXT900 fits perfect) and then you mount that plate back on the wing.

The wires need extension (well in fact the HXT900 just fits but you still need extensions to get to your receiver) and to get these through the wing some white cord is already glued in while building. Just get it on both sides, attach the servo wire and pull it through. Here you can see my picking tool in action. That hole is where the wire comes out inside the fuselage.

Up to the installation of the servo’s in the fuselage. There the HXT900 servo’s almost fitted perfectly. The slots are like 1 mm too small. Enlarge and again a good fit.

For all servo mounting I used the screws that came with the servo’s. Drilled a small hole in the wood to align them and then fixed the servo’s in place.

The kit comes with some easy connectors that can be adjusted. As usual you need to drill out the servo arms quite a bit to get them in and spinning freely. Remember to secure the bolt using threadlock and make sure the connector itself still spins freely without too much slop.

That’s about it. Like I mentioned before I never installed the wheel caps since I needed bigger wheels.

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